Day 308 - The S.I. Railway Pub Crawl

Local ruffians. I used to be scared of these shirtless bastards.

Last night, I joined my friends and colleagues from the Bridge & Tunnel Club for perhaps the coolest pub crawl I've ever been on.

This once- or twice-a-year affair follows the same general itinerary. It starts just before sunset at the southern tip of the Island--in one of New York State's southernmost restaurants--a few minutes' walk from the one-car-long flag stop known as Atlantic on the SI Railway. Last night began with several courses of pasta and some wine at Rocky Toto's, a classic (and very good) red sauce joint in Tottenville.

From there, we headed back on the train and began the crawl in earnest, stopping in at a bar at each of several stations on the way back toward the ferry: Talk of the Town in Great Kills where we played some bar shuffleboard; the Night Gallery (which reminded me of a suburban finished basement with a wet bar installed) in New Dorp; and the classic Lee's Tavern in Dongan Hills for thin crust barroom pizza. I pealed off after that, but the rest of the crew hit a few more bars in Stapleton, Tompkinsville and St. George before, well, crawling back onto the ferry in the wee hours of the morning.

As a Staten Islander by birth and through adolescence, and a proud denizen of the outer boroughs, it was a little embarrassing to not have been to a single one of these bars growing up. To be perfectly honest, I was a pretty good kid who didn't begin dabbling with such things until well into high school and, by then, I was leading a decidedly non-Staten Island-centric life.

The whole evening was marked by turning heads (as our entourage basically barged into locals-only hangouts), quick drinking (as we were timing our stays and departures to meet the next train), and lots and lots of cheap beer. It was divine!